A diary of my creative experiences.

July 2013

07/24/2013

Our fourth challenge is " Texture". Using an Arashi dyed piece of fabric I allowed the design to dictate where and in what direction my interpretation of Texture would take me. I used mock pin tucking, cording, free motion quilting, hand embroidery, and fabric "beads".

07/08/2013

Using the theme " Texture", I have used a photograph of driftwood as my inspiration. I used pintucking with and without cord, piping, machine Trapunto and free motion quilting. The quilt was worked in white cotton and then dyed and highlighted with paintsticks. Some areas were covered with cheesecloth and this was also used as a piping.

07/05/2013

Over at Paper Art Digital we are creating new art work with the old. Our challenge was to alter a 2-3 inch paint brush
This is my creation:

Method:

This is using two recycled materials...the paint brush and a sock.

First I had Henk take the metal sleeve holding the bristles onto the top of the brush, next I wrapped the handle with cooking foil to resemble a figure. this is then covered with paper- mache.

When the paper mache was dry I painted with Gesso and black acrylic.

I had several ideas on "dressing" the doll but decided on a pair of socks that I had laying around. Many years ago I learnt how to dress a form from Barbara Chapman so I used her techniques here. I cut a rectangle the width of the body and cut a tiny hole in the middle and squeezed this over the head of the brush. Before sewing the sides, I cut a tiny rectangle for the sleeves and sewed these around the arms. Next I cut the body of the sock from the top to the length of the doll from the arms to the base, I gathered the top and placed this under the tunic.

The bristles had several coats of gesso before being glued back into place. I cut a piece of the sock near the toe and then cut a small slit in the top and squeezed onto the bristles and arranged as shown.

The face is small slivers of copper sheet glued in place, and she is holding two decorative buttons.

The sock was used right side and inside for contrast and allowed to roll back on the edges.

Over at Paper Art Digital we are creating new art work with the old. The first challenge was to alter a cotton reel (thread spool).
This is my creation:

Method:

Wrapped torn strips of fabric around reel and them tied small torn ribbon around the base and bubbly wool around the top. Next I cut a thin cardboard shape to fit on the top and glued down, a second shape was cut from decorated paper for the bottom but not glued in place until the end.

Having chosen a character created by Tumblefish I fixed this in place by running thin wire through the spool so I had two ends coming out the top round shape, I used a needle to poke the holes in the round shape.

To make the character stand I used double side tape to hold the wires in position and covered with thin decorative paper.

Using pins and beads I decorated the front and back of the top of the spool, then I glued into place the saying "Play" and the round shape for the bottom.